


if my world stops turning

by PhantomFlutist



Series: My deep wounds don't heal [2]
Category: VIXX
Genre: M/M, terminal illness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-29
Updated: 2015-06-29
Packaged: 2018-04-06 21:12:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4236774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PhantomFlutist/pseuds/PhantomFlutist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jaehwan has no idea what to do. His talent is making light of bad situations until the others forget, but there’s no way that Hongbin is going to forget about this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	if my world stops turning

**Author's Note:**

> Shoot, I meant to post this weeks ago, but life got in the way. This is the sequel to ["words might not be enough"](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4120363) and while you don't have to read that to understand this, it would definitely help. This is sort of based on the [prompt](http://vixxgenerator.tumblr.com/): Ken/Hongbin - So, this one time....
> 
> This piece's theme song is B2st's ["Will you be alright"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=su4a4B_GDyM)
> 
> X-posted on livejournal

_‘This club is really shitty,’_ is Jaehwan’s first thought when he walks in. The music is too loud and the bass is up too high, leaving a dull thumping for the few dancers out on the floor to gyrate to. The lights are too bright, making Jaehwan’s head hurt as they flash (red, yellow, green, purple,) almost too fast to register, and he squints around, trying to spot someone in the dim corners of the room.

He’s at the bar with a lowball glass in his hand, and as Jaehwan starts towards him, picking his way across the sticky floor and between half-populated tables, he throws it back, draining the entire glass of dark liquid in one go.

Jaehwan slips onto a rickety barstool with a slightly torn seat and waves the bartender away for now. He didn’t come here to drink. “Hongbin,” he says, watching the man next to him order another of whatever he was having, “Why did you call me?”

The other man shakes his head, some of his long hair separating from its ponytail and making a halo around his face. “You won’t judge. Hakyeon-hyung would scold, and Taekwoon-hyung would worry silently, and Sanghyuk would pretend to be helpful even though he has no idea what he’s talking about. So I called you.”

The bartender brings Hongbin’s drink, and Jaehwan swipes it before Hongbin’s fingers even touch the glass. He takes a sip and immediately regrets it—cheap whiskey; he should have known. He sets it down. “Wonshik is devastated, you know.”

“I know.” Hongbin looks at least as bad, his eyes sunken and his shoulders drooping. Looking at him you’d think it had been weeks since the breakup, not mere hours.

“So, what,” Jaehwan asks, “you’re not even going to tell him the truth? We all know Wonshik would never cheat on you, so something else has to be going on.”

Hongbin snorts and steals his glass back, taking a long dreg. “The truth is the last thing he needs, trust me.”

Jaehwan doesn’t, not as far as he can throw him; not right now. He crosses his arms and gives Hongbin his best unimpressed look. It’s not very effective. Hongbin just sits there, drinking his shitty whiskey and acting for all the world like he was the one who was wronged in this situation.

“He’s _broken,_ Hongbin,” Jaehwan says at last. “He can’t accept this and move on because he doesn’t understand why it’s even happening. If you’re going to lie, at least use an excuse that might feel like the truth.”

Hongbin stares into his drink, and he’s silent for a long time. Finally he says, “So this one time, Wonshik and I were walking down the stairs and I fell. It was hardly a fall, I was two steps from the bottom and the worst of it was a scraped knee, but he wouldn’t stop fretting over me for a week.”

Jaehwan blinks at him. He’s not sure what to do with this abrupt subject change, so he drops his arms, folds his hands in his lap, and waits.

Except Hongbin doesn’t say anything more, just drains the last of his whiskey and orders another. His eyes are oddly wet.

“Well?” Jaehwan says at last, “What does that have to do with anything?”

Another long silence, during which Hongbin’s drink comes and he takes another sip. “If that’s how he reacts to a scraped knee,” Hongbin says, so softly that Jaehwan has to lean close to hear him, “then how will he possibly live with this?”

Jaehwan feels his belly warm with anger, and he shoves Hongbin’s shoulder hard. He must not be as drunk as he looks, because it doesn’t faze him. “If you’re so worried about him, why did you do this to him in the first place?” Jaehwan asks.

Hongbin looks at him for the first time since he walked in. His eyes are red and puffy like he’s been crying and his brows are drawn together, his whole face dripping with remorse. “I had to choose. I had to decide what would hurt him the least: this or the truth.”

Jaehwan’s mouth flops open and he gapes at Hongbin. “And you chose this? He’s suicidal, Hongbin. He can’t think, he can barely talk, _he destroyed all his work from the last two months._ He doesn’t know who to be without you. If you were going to do this, you should have done it sooner, before he lost all sense of himself.”

Hongbin makes a strange noise, and then another, and with a jolt Jaehwan realizes that he’s crying with great, heaving sobs, his shoulders shaking fiercely. At a loss, Jaehwan pulls him into his arms and holds him as he cries.

Hongbin’s whole body is trembling minutely, his hands shaking as they wrap around Jaehwan’s back and cling to his shirt. And holding him Jaehwan realizes how thin he’s gotten, his ribs poking out at his sides, the muscles he used to boast about mostly gone. Hongbin is wasting away, and this can’t just be because of the breakup, because this kind of weight loss takes much more than a few hours or even a few days. This has been happening for a long time and somehow none of them noticed.

“Hongbin,” Jaehwan murmurs, petting his hair and trying to calm his crying, “How long have you been sick?”

Hongbin hiccups, tensing in Jaehwan’s grip and then letting loose a full-body shiver. He takes a deep breath before he says, “You’re too perceptive, Hyung.”

Jaehwan smiles into his hair and replies, “And yet people are always surprised.”

The crack doesn’t make Hongbin laugh like he’d hoped. Instead he sighs deeply and pulls himself out of Jaehwan’s arms. “I found out about a month ago,” he answers Jaehwan’s earlier question. “I’d had a lot of headaches, so I went to the doctor.”

Jaehwan doesn’t like where this is going, and he doesn’t want to hear the rest of the story. But this is Hongbin’s _life,_ so he just reaches out and takes the other man’s hand in one of his, silently supporting him.

“It’s a brain tumor,” Hongbin deadpans, like he’s been repeating it to himself over and over, trying to get up the courage to tell someone. “They say it’s inoperable. We’re trying chemo, but….” He cuts himself off, choking on his next words.

Jaehwan squeezes Hongbin’s hand, ready to tell him that he doesn’t have to continue if he doesn’t want to, that Jaehwan gets it, but Hongbin gets there before he can.

“Best case scenario, I have maybe a year. And I can’t, I _couldn’t_ ask Wonshik to watch me die. The sooner it ended the sooner he could move on and then maybe by the time I was gone he wouldn’t even remember that I’d ever existed.” He falls into crying again, and as Jaehwan pulls him back into his arms he realizes they’re getting weird looks from some of the other patrons. It doesn’t matter.

Jaehwan rubs Hongbin’s back rhythmically, up and down, up and down, and tells him, “Wonshik could never forget you. Especially not after the way you ended things. You idiot, you’re everything to him. He’d want to be with you for this.”

Hongbin just shakes his head. He’s crying too hard to reply, so Jaehwan lets him and doesn’t push for anything more.

Eventually, when Hongbin’s tears have calmed somewhat and he’s taking deep, hiccupping breaths, Jaehwan says, “Let’s get you home.” He pays Hongbin’s tab and then wraps an arm around his waist, guiding him through the club to the door.

Jaehwan has no idea what to do. He’s not the good, protective hyung that Hakyeon is, and he’s not a silent support like Taekwoon. Jaehwan’s talent is making light of bad situations until the others forget, but there’s no way that Hongbin is going to forget about this.

All he can do is hold Hongbin, take him back to his dorm room and tuck him into bed and make sure that he’s not alone. From now on, Hongbin’s life is going to consist of pain and loneliness and impossible choices, and Jaehwan doesn’t think that he’s the right person to be at Hongbin’s side for this. But Hongbin called _him,_ so he’s going to do his best to support his friend.

Jaehwan lies down beside Hongbin on the tiny dorm bed and wraps his arms around Hongbin’s quivering form. He’s already asleep, the stress of the day and the alcohol too potent a combination for his tired body to resist. Watching his face contort in pain even in slumber, Jaehwan thinks that Wonshik is not the only one who’s broken, and he’s not sure how to fix either of them.

**Author's Note:**

> So that's number 2. The third one I still have to edit, and...I don't know, I'll try to post it by the end of July at the latest? Hope for sooner, but I'm a lazy ass, so who knows. Thanks for reading, guys! I love you all.


End file.
